Being
one of those poor uninsured types, I went to the Haight Ashbury
Free Clinic in San Francisco to get some stuff in my throat
checked out. I described my problems—weird tonsil spots and
a lump in the back of my throat—to the evening’s practitioner
and said that I had felt around back there with my finger.
He seemed kind of shocked. I didn’t say that I learned how
to suppress my gag reflex when I was 20 so that I could give
better blowjobs. No, Dan, I was quiet and polite. So he looked
in my throat with a tongue depressor. He told me what the
tonsil stuff was and I was relieved to find that it was a
non-problem. Then he tried to usher me out. I said, “Well,
what about this other thing? The lump in my throat?” I explained
that I couldn’t see it, I could only feel it, and I asked
the practitioner to put his finger down my throat and feel
around.

“Fine,”
he replied, “but this is the last thing I’m going to put in
your mouth. Just in case you have some sort of fetish.”

I have a lot of empathy for the folks who work at free clinics
(they see a lot of freaks and schizos), which is why I didn’t
immediately pitch a fit. But damn it, when I go to Planned
Parenthood for an exam, they don’t tell me that they aren’t
going to feel around in there with their fingers because they
think I might have a fetish. They stick their fingers in my
cunt and feel around to make sure nothing funny is going on.

After the practitioner felt around a little bit, he said he
didn’t feel anything. Then he said, “You wouldn’t believe
how many people come in here with that fetish,” and he removed
his hand from my mouth. I never felt him touch the spot where
the lump actually is but I
couldn’t tell him to do it again because of the fetish comment.
I left feeling completely marginalized.

So do you have any idea what the fetish is that he was referring
to, Dan? Is it having someone gag you? Is it having someone
feel around the back of your throat? Is it having, specifically,
a doctor do it? And what would be the appropriate response
to a comment such as the one the practitioner made? My friends
have suggested that I write a letter to the clinic management.
Do you think that he was out of line making a comment like
that? Or do you think that he was within his rights to not
do something that made him uncomfortable? The only thing that
I can think of that could’ve actually made him uncomfortable
was that I was wearing my leather wrist restraints, which
I always wear. Your thoughts?

—Tonsil
Shocked

You
had me until the last line, TS. You showed up at a free clinic
wearing bondage gear and you were shocked—shocked!—when the
overworked, underpaid practitioner wondered if you might not
be there for a cheap thrill?

Look, TS, there really is such a thing as medical fetishism
(we’ve discussed it recently in this space), and inconsiderate
medical fetishists have been known to show up in doctor’s
offices, free clinics, and emergency rooms seeking unnecessary
tests, swabs, enemas, and worse. So it’s understandable that
this practitioner, who may have encountered medical fetishists
seeking cheap thrills in the past, would be a wary of a woman
in wrist restraints who asked him to stick a couple of fingers
down her throat and “feel around.” And it probably didn’t
help that you were requesting a rather unorthodox throat exam.

“You
never really stick your finger into someone’s throat,” said
Barak Gaster, MD, an internist at the University of Washington
and Savage Love’s regular go-to medical guy. “A request like
that would be so out of the ordinary that I could see it throwing
a doctor for a loop.” And how do doctors look for lumps in
throats? If your lump can’t be seen or felt during a regular
external neck exam, “typically you’re sent to an eye, nose,
and throat specialist for a direct laryngoscopy, which is
a fiber-optic scope that lets you look into the back upper
throat.”

I know, I know: Some folks wear wrist restraints and other
leather gear to publicly affirm their BDSM lifestyle. But
before the BDSM community attempts to bore me into submission
with tons of angry e-mails, let me say this: Did the practitioner
use the best choice of words? No. Could he have been more
sensitive about the lump in TS’s throat? Yes. But sensitivity
is a two-way street, my kinky friends, and TS has to take
some responsibility for her own actions. Just as doctors should
be courteous and nonjudgmental when it comes to medically
neutral issues like, say, sexual orientation or kink (and
courteous and judgmental when it comes to medically harmful
issues like, say, barebacking or crystal meth), patients are
obligated to be courteous and respectful. As TS knows that
this poor guy has to deal with a parade of “freaks and schizos”
all day (what a sensitive choice of words!), she could have
shown a little consideration and left her fetish gear at home
that day.

If that’s not possible—if TS just can’t be parted from her
bondage gear—then she should arrive at the doctor’s office
armed, at the very least, with a sense of humor. Instead she
arrived wearing wrist restraints and left with her panties
in a bunch. The patient, not the doctor, is to blame for that.

(I attempted to reach the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic for comment
but they were closed. Oddly enough, the clinic’s outgoing
message claimed they were observing a “federal holiday” on
a day that wasn’t a federal holiday. Hmm. Anyway, if the clinic
or the doctor involved wants to get their two cents in, please
write.)

“Phillip”
had a long ponytail. He was smart and cool, but chicks hated
his gross hair. Our girlfriends told him that girls would
be all over him just as soon as he lost his ponytail. He finally
cut it off and, lo and behold, girls flocked to him. Now he’s
engaged to one of them. The problem is nobody likes this girl.
She’s a selfish, controlling bitch who plans to move Phillip
out of state when they are married. He doesn’t want to move
but seems to be going along with it. He’s totally whipped
and seems really unhappy. Our question to you: Is it appropriate
to tell him not to marry this woman? We’ve had friends tell
us not to, as it would likely be a friendship killer. But
he’s going to move and he’ll basically be out of our lives.
We honestly feel like staging an intervention. Still, we all
feel like assholes for even thinking like this. We know she’s
not right for him, but should we tell him that?

—Friends
Against Controlling Bitches

Sometimes
the most loving thing a friend can do is be an asshole, FACB,
and it’s definitely asshole time when a friend is about to
marry the wrong person. If you’re not willing to risk being
an asshole now—even when it risks destroying a friendship—then
you’re not Phillip’s true friend. And, like you said, if he
goes ahead and marries this woman you’re probably never going
to see him again anyway, so get that intervention together
ASAP.

Attention Readers: Are you a straight woman who likes to watch
gay male porn? Bret Fetzer, a writer and a friend, is working
on a story about women like you. If you’re up for talking
about the why and wherefore, please contact him at bret@savagelove.net.